It's Official: 'Chaos' Picked Up To Series At CBS For Midseason

Tom Spezialy’s CIA drama pilot Chaos completed its remarkable comeback with a midseason series order at CBS. The network and producing studio 20th Century Fox TV just closed a deal for a 13-episode order to the Brett Ratner-directed pilot. Chaos was presumed dead 3 weeks ago when CBS and 20th TV could not come to an agreement after 5 weeks of negotiations and the options on the actors were let to expire on June 30. But in the past 3 days, the network and the studio were able to patch things up on the dealmaking front (the lunch CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler had with 20th TV chairmen Dana Walden and Gary Newman on Monday certainly helped) and to get the cast back. Closing the deals for the actors was no small feat, especially as it was accomplished in 48 hours. Coming back for the series are the pilot’s star Freddy Rodriguez and co-stars Eric Close, James Murray, Tim Blake Nelson and Carmen Ejogo. Per decision the network and studio made right after the upfront, Stephen Rea, who was also in the pilot, will be recast.

Chaos joins another comeback kid at 20th TV, drama pilot Breakout Kings, which landed a pickup at A&E after being passed on by Fox. At CBS, Chaos joins the network’s other midseason drama series, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior.